Thursday, March 8, 2012

Enrichment for Gifted & Talented Children

What do I mean by Gifted & Talented?

There was a time when giftedness in children was narrowly defined in terms of intellectual skills and knowledge that could be tested by a narrow range of intelligence tests. However, in recent decades our understanding of giftedness has broadened based on our growing understanding that intelligence can have many manifestations (see for example my post on Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences). And so, while we know some gifted children can demonstrate exceptional abilities across a wide range of capabilities (e.g. memory, language, mathematics, problem solving etc), others are extremely gifted in narrower and more specific ways (e.g. visual arts, music, leadership, sport etc).

Giftedness in a student is commonly characterised by an advanced pace of learning, quality of thinking or capability for remarkably high standards of performance compared to students of the same age.

In relation to the narrower understanding of general academic giftedness, the following well-known definition by Joseph Renzulli is helpful.

Giftedness consists of an interaction among three basic clusters of human traits:

Above average general abilities
High levels of task commitment
High levels of creativity

How do I recognise giftedness in my children?

6yr old drawing of Blue Tongue via eyes of a predator

If you live with a gifted child or have one in your class there is a good chance you will begin to recognise a number of characteristics that tend to differentiate them from most children, even most capable children. While many parents feel their children are gifted purely due to their observations of the pace of their development in the early preschool years, extreme giftedness is much more rare. While some teachers tend to assume that gifted children can take care of themselves and so require less attention, this can be a dangerous assumption. Life for the highly gifted child can be an extremely frustrating, confusing and at times lonely experience if their giftedness isn't identified and supported. If your child demonstrates, to a significantly greater extent, a large number of the following characteristics, they may be gifted and will need support, encouragement and some adaptation by teachers and parents:

The ability to invent or create novel or original things, or look at their world in unusual ways.

The desire and ability to investigate their immediate world, to see the unusual and observe things that others don't notice.

Extreme curiosity demonstrated by experimentation, investigation and in depth study.

If you think about the above characteristics it should be easy to see how they might well be misinterpreted by teachers and parents who don't understand giftedness. For example, wanting to work independently could be seen as anti-social, single-mindedness can be seen as self-focussed, questioning the assumed knowledge of the teacher could be seen as rudeness and so on. This is why the gifted need to be understood and supported; they are different.How do I support a gifted child?

There are two main approaches to meeting the needs of the gifted.

a) Acceleration - This involves allowing students
to complete curriculum faster, or to advance through school more rapidly,
based on their readiness, motivation and capability. It allows the pace of instruction to be adjusted to meet their needs and, it offers new more appropriate challenges.

b) Enrichment - This involves the modification of the curriculum to allow gifted learners to
explore topics in greater depth or breadth, to permit the use of varied
skills and generally to promote a higher level of thinking, investigation and exploration. It often
involves integration of varied learning areas, creative outcomes and
products, and the use of supplementary materials beyond the
normal range.

Above drawing by Jacob aged just 4 years after a trip to aquarium. His drawing from the unusual vantage point of the fish shows his of Grandad looking into the pond

While there are classes set up for extremely gifted children and some schools that establish specific groups for gifted and talented children, for most gifted children, the mainstream classroom is where they spend most of their time. Both acceleration and enrichment usually occurs within mainstream schools and at times under the sponsorship of external organisations.

Joseph Renzulli's Triad Model has been influential for schools and parents that have tried to provide enrichment for children. His Enrichment Triad has three types of enrichment:

Type 3 - Individual & Small Group Investigation and Problem Solving. This type allows children to apply the skills acquired in Type 1 & 2 to real life problems of interest to them. They then present their findings in some form to other, e.g. written reports, video presentation, website, debate, a journal etc.

The reality for many parents of gifted children is that they end up having to make a lot of effort themselves to provide for their gifted child. In future posts I will look at various aspects of how we might support the gifted. In the rest of this post I will suggest a number simple ways to enrich the education of the gifted. While all of these ideas could be seen as relevant for children of average ability, they offer additional opportunities for the gifted.

1. Ensure that the child experiences a rich and stimulating life outside school.

This could include:

Opportunities to play and learn with other gifted children, older children and adults who have similar interests and can stimulate their imagination, offer new experiences, and challenge them with new areas of learning.

While it isn't possible for any teacher or parent to offer individual activities for gifted children there are many wonderful activities that all children will enjoy which can also accommodate the needs of the gifted. The following are some examples of the types of enrichment activities I mean.

a) Story in a Box strategy

This involves placing 5-6 objects in a box that have some relationship to one
another. Sometimes I might include a single
object that is unrelated, to allow additional creativity. Children are then encouraged to talk about the objects and then create stories that relate to them. The teacher or parent would
usually need to model the process of story creation before asking children to
do it. You might also jointly construct a story or two with children
before letting them do it independently. With that proviso, here are
just some of the ways I'd suggest you might use the strategy:

1. A group of 5-7 year-olds might explore the objects in a box and try to
tell a joint story or simply take turns creating individual stories. You
could allow them to supplement the box with a dress-up box if there is a
need for children to become specific characters or take on roles.

2. A group of 6-12 year old children might discuss the objects and then
prepare a joint monologue to be presented to others (with the objects
used as artefacts or aids). Alternatively, a group story or picture book
could be produced based on the objects.

3. The box of objects might simply be used to create a digital story
(individually or in groups). Have a look at Daniel Meadows' 'Scissors' video to see what might be produced, as wells as my previous post on digital storytelling (here). This approach could also be used with high school children.

I wrote a post back in January 2009 (here) about a family excursion to explore part of Sydney that was the setting for the wonderful book 'My Place' (Nadia Wheatley & Donna Rawlins). 'My Place'
was published in 1987 for distribution in Australia’s bicentennial year
(1988) and makes a strong statement about the fact that Indigenous
Australians were here for thousands of years before white settlement
(there isn't space to unpack this). It is a very clever book that takes
one suburban block (and the surrounding area) and tells the story of
this place in reverse chronological sequence, decade by decade, from
1988 back to 1788 when the first British Fleet landed at Botany Bay. The
overall meaning of the book is shaped by multiple narrative recounts of
the families who have lived in this spot, 'my Place' and the changing
nature of the physical landscape and built environment.

Our excursion as a family around the streets of Tempe and St Peters
in Sydney enriched my appreciation of the book and my grandchildren's
sense of the place. As well, it gave my grandchildren a great
introduction to Australia's history since white settlement in 1788 and
it deepened our understanding of the book. The book has been used as the
basis of a television series that screened recently in Australia (here).

There
are many other wonderful books that are situated in specific places
that can be explored after, before or during the reading of a book.
Here are three more.

c) Offering Stimulating Firsthand experiences

I have written previously about the 'The Language Experience Approach' to literacy on this blog (here).
Typically, it occurs when a teacher or parent opportunistically seizes an experience as a basis for learning. Many are basic:

The squelch of mud between toes on a wet day in the back yard

Running on a sandy beach for the first time

Watching a worm wiggle in the palm of a small hand

Building a cubby house from boxes in the back yard

Watching a bird build its nest in a tree in the playground in spring

Doing hand painting

Observing chickens as they grow bigger day by day

The
experience becomes a focus for discussion and exploration and eventually
is recorded as a written text in some way. There is great power in new experiences to enrich learning - seeing new
places, doing things for the first time, tasting new food, finding
yourself immersed in a significant event - new experiences have a major
impact on learning and our use of language to describe these events.
Such experiences teach us new things and move us to use language to make
sense of the experience and tell others about it.

The approach has four main elements:

Sharing an experience

Talking about the experience

Making some record of the experience (words, pictures, sound recording, photographs, video)

Finally, using the recorded experience for further reading, discussion and the stimulation of further writing

d) Using blogging to stimulate children's learning

As a keen blogger
I know the various benefits of blogging as I'm sure do the readers of
this blog. But how might we make better use of blogging with children?
Many teachers have already experimented with blogging for children, as
have some parents. Most children don't need to be convinced of the
wonder and worth of the Internet, but could we make better use of the
Blogosphere?

There seem some obvious reasons for using blogs in the classroom or at home:

1. The act of writing a blog post can lead to significant research and
related learning. For example, it is an excellent way to develop web
comprehension and research skills.

2. Blogs offer authentic
readers and audiences for children. So much classroom writing is simply
for the teacher 'as examiner', but blogs offer 'real' readers who will
respond as learners and fellow writers. This is powerful.

3. Blogs can offer a means for children of many nationalities to communicate and share their ideas across the globe.

4. Blogging can offer a wonderful means for children to practice a second language.

5. Using blogs as creators as well as consumers highlights the need for
children to consider issues such as truth and fiction, privacy,
copyright and so on.
You can read a full post on 'Children as Bloggers' here.e) Using film making and animation

Filmmaking and animation is another wonderful way to enrich the learning of gifted children. I have written a previous post on some varied resources for animation. One of them was 'The Klutz Book of Animation'
by John Cassidy and Nicholas Berger. It is excellent aid for young
filmmakers. The book provides step by step guidance to primary aged
children to make simple animations using a video camera (as simple as a
web cam), a computer and a variety of props, objects, plasticine and so
on. The publishers provide a number of videos online that teach
children the fundamentals of animation and filmmaking (here). At the Klutz site you can download free instructional videos (here), free sound effects (here) and sample videos made by children (here).
Below is a sample using the Klutz methodology. This is a great resource
for young filmmakers. Steven Spielberg would have loved to have this
as a child.

You can read a full post on animation and film making tools for children here.

Summing Up

It is important that truly gifted and talented children be identified and supported. I will return to this topic in future posts.

Rich literacy experiences from the start!

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About Me

I am a Professor of Education at The University of Sydney, Australia. I have spent a large part of my adult life as a teacher, academic, researcher and senior university administrator. My interests are varied, including how children learn language and literacy, the nature and construction of meaning, curriculum, pedagogy, and adult learning.